Over 80 flights hit by fresh bomb threats in last 24 hours

New Delhi: Around 80 domestic and international flights operated by Indian airlines received bomb threats on Thursday, taking the total number of such incidents to over 250 in the past 11 days.

At least 20 flights each of Air India, Vistara, and IndiGo got bomb threats while Akasa Air got the threats for 13 flights. Around five flights each of Alliance Air and SpiceJet also received the threats.

Officials said all threat messages were declared hoax after thorough security checks. This includes IndiGo’s Kolkata-Bengaluru, Bengaluru-Kolkata, Kochi-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Jharsuguda flights.

An IndiGo statement said the airline received threats for 20 flights, including Hyderabad to Goa, Kolkata to Hyderabad, , Delhi to Istanbul, Mumbai to Istanbul, Jeddah to Mumbai, Pune to Jodhpur, Kolkata to Pune, Hyderabad to Bagdogra, Kochi to Hyderabad, Guwahati to Kolkata Delhi to Aizwal and Ahmedabad to Lucknow.

Akasa Air spokesperson said 13 of its flights received security alerts.

At least six flights to and from Kochi airport received bomb threats on Thursday. It included one SpiceJet flight from Dubai to Kochi.

Officials said a threat about the presence of bombs on an Akasa Air flight in Bhubaneswar airport was received on social media but it later turned out to be a hoax.

Similarly, no bomb was found on the Vistara flight from Mumbai, which received a threat call minutes before it landed at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo.

“A non-specific call on a bomb threat was reported to the flight before landing at BIA. Accordingly, the security agencies and relevant authorities adopted all precautionary and preventive measures," Colombo airport said in a statement.